Steve Stücky, Blanche Hartman, Norman Fischer,andMary
Morgandiscuss
some of the challenges and achievements of one of American Buddhism’s
oldest and most important institutions. With an introduction byDavid
Chadwick.

San Francisco Zen Center at Fifty

Introduction by
David Chadwick

The teacher was
ready, the students came. Without a plan, Shunryu Suzuki arrived in San
Francisco May 23, 1959. The Zen garden of America
had been fertilized by Nyogen Senzaki, Paul Reps, DT Suzuki, the Beats,
Alan Watts, the First Zen Institute of NYC. Instant satori and the
inscrutable orient were on people’s minds. Suzuki emphasized that practice
is enlightenment. “I sit zazen at 5:30 in the morning. You are welcome to
join me,” he’d say. He took one step after another, was always there with
and for his students, aware of the fragility of the situation. Three years
later, almost to the day, he was installed as abbot of the Japanese
American Sokoji. In August his wife and younger son arrived and articles of incorporationwere filed for "The Zen Center of
San Francisco." Fifty years ago he had decided to stay.

Fueled by a growing
interest in Asian ways and the hippie migration, the zazen group expanded
and founded ZenMountain Center,
a pioneering Zen monastery at Tassajara Springs, an historic Monterrey County
resort in Los
Padres National Forest.
There women and men practiced together, following Japanese forms in a new
way, chanting in both languages. It also kept the gates open to the public
for the summer guest season which kept the community grounded in society,
brought in much needed revenue, and exposed thousands to the practice of
Zen.

In 1969 Suzuki and
his assistant Katagiri, in a mutual agreement with the board of the
Japanese American congregation, left Sokoji and moved to the new City
Center on Page Street. There residential practice expanded, and positions
and options increased. There were priest and lay ordinations, but “We’re
neither priest nor lay,” Suzuki said. He expressed concern about the
growing size of ZenCenter; some elders lamented a loss of
intimacy.

After Suzuki’s death
from cancer in December of ‘71, his sole American heir Richard Baker
became abbot. Green Gulch Farm was acquired, adding a third site to the
San Francisco Zen
Center, the official name adopted in ’95. Businesses including a grocery
store, bakery, and restaurant were also started, and operated as
extensions of SFZC, providing financial support to the organization and
opportunities for work practice. Outreach to the neighborhood and society
increased as did the emphasis on scholarship.

Baker’s
well-publicized departure in ’83 was like an unsettling divorce in the
community and was followed by reflection, downsizing, and a decentralizing
of teaching and administrative authority. There was a shift from a single
lineage holder in the position of leadership to multiple abbots with term
limits, and a new emphasis on training more teachers, some of whom went
out to start other centers.

Suzuki’s and his
students’ spirit of acceptance and tolerance has always been a key part of
the story of the San Francisco ZenCenter. The hippies came and he
said, “I am very grateful to them.” That spirit continues today. Women
have played a central role from the beginning. Gays and lesbians have
found acceptance of their sexual preferences. The percentage of young
people at the centers continues to be greater than at most small zazen
groups. Members have always been largely white college educated from the
middle and upper middle class who welcome diversity. Students and teachers
have been active as therapists, in social work, environmentalism, peace
work, harm reduction, hospice, meals for the homeless, and other forms of
service and right livelihood. The SFZC has been a hub of culture and art
and created friendly spaces where people and outside organizations can
meet.

One of the strengths
of the SFZC is that it didn’t keep expanding but became the source of a
wide ranging community of independent centers, groups, teachers, and
individual practitioners in America and Europe, some close to the mother
ship and some not. Add those who share this lineage through the printed
word and other media and the ripples of what began fifty years ago extend
far, even washing back up on Asian shores.